Weblog
Barbarians at the Gate: Cushing Academy edition by Roger Kimball | from Pajamas Media
Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts is a B-list prep school, old enough and rich enough to merit the appellation “elite,” but academically a cut (or two) below such first-rank institutions as Deerfield, Exeter, and Andover. If you have a spare $44,000 and you wish to unload Junior for grades 9-12, I suppose you might consider [...] “In the final analysis, I believe that the university is lost.” by Roger Kimball | from Pajamas Media
A few days ago, I attended a small lunch for Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist whose image of Mohammed with a bomb for a turban is the most famous of the so-called “Danish cartoons” that occasioned one of those periodic paroxysms of rage, mayhem, and murder among followers of the religion of peace. The lunch was [...] by James Bowman
Odd, isn’t it, how the progressive side in the culture war is forever telling those of us on the conservative side how silly we are for fighting at all? I think it must come, like so much else in the progressive program, from the legacy of Karl Marx. Whatever else they do or don’t accept in Marxist teaching, they have completely bought into the bit about the iron laws of history. True, it may not be the dictatorship of the proletariat which they envisage as the fulfilment of those laws but some more green and non-violent utopia. All the same, it is just as inevitable as Marx’s. That’s why, too, progressives more and more favor the Marxist usage "reactionary" to characterize their opposition over "conservative." We conservatives are merely reacting, you see, by trying vainly to put the brakes on history’s juggernaut, rather than conserving anything. All the old stuff has got to go anyway. Inevitably. Eala beorht bune, eala byrnwiga. . . by James Bowman
The British seem to prefer turning the ordinary responsibilities of private life over to the government, but do they really love their National Health Service or not? The answer is probably that, like an overbearing or interfering parent, it is both loved and hated at the same time. Few would do without it, but fewer still do not resent its delays and inefficiencies, sometimes fatal ones, at least as much as most Americans resent the bureaucratic annoyances of their health insurance companies or HMOs. One advantage of the British system that is not often mentioned in the American health care debate, however, is the extent to which it has been used, as Theodore Dalrymple has pointed out, to medicalize the country’s unemployment problem. A large portion of the long-term unemployed have been reclassified as "disabled" in order to prevent them from becoming a political or economic embarrassment to the government, whose provision of busy-work jobs like "diversity officer" can’t keep up. Obviously, that kind of thing becomes a bit easier when doctors are state employees. by James Bowman
Just over a year ago, I wrote an article for The American Spectator which took to task a review of "Grand Theft Auto IV" that had recently appeared in The New York Times for treating a video game as if it were a work of art — which, indeed, the reviewer (Seth Schiesel) had taken it to be. At the time, I thought this a self-evident absurdity and am not sure I don’t still see it as such, but I received corrective e-mail from some people, including some conservatives, who believed that at least a favorite video game or two of their own, if not "GTA," should be treated as art. As I say, I didn’t find these missives quite persuasive of the truth of their author’s points of view, but I was grateful to get them. They made me aware, as I hadn’t been before, that even if I didn’t agree with it there was a serious case to be made on the other side. by Stefan Beck
I don’t have much love for Adam Gopnik. I’ve never gotten over his horrifying and, I think, sensibility-defining comment about the smell of lower Manhattan in the wake of 9/11: “Not entirely horrible from a reasonable distance—almost like the smell of smoked mozzarella.” This unwitting Hannibal Lecter routine is the least of Gopnik’s problems, though: See this classic takedown by James Wolcott, which I could read once a month and never tire of. I do check out Gopnik’s work from time to time—usually to see if he’s outdone himself, but occasionally because I suspect I might actually like it. For instance, I’ll read anything ridiculing Dan Brown, the richer-than-Jesus author whose Da Vinci Code rewrote the rules about what an adult can read in public without having a milkshake thrown at him. Brown’s new chapter book, The Lost Symbol, was just released to much fanfare (“THRILLING AND ENTERTAINING, LIKE THE EXPERIENCE ON A ROLLER COASTER,” raves the Los Angeles Times on the dust jacket, though in fairness this is a brazen ESL remix of the original review). In this brief piece, Gopnik makes a few interesting speculations about the distressing popularity of Brown’s work: by Roger Kimball | from Pajamas Media
Andrew Breitbart is a national hero. Not only was he the impresario who brought the exposure of Acorn by filmmaker James O’Keefe and actress Hannah Giles to public attention, but he has just followed it up with a blistering exposé of how the White House has endeavored to use the National Endowment for the Arts [...] by James Bowman
Today’s Washington Post’s front page lead is yet another story puffing the paper’s favored candidate for Governor of Virginia, Democrat Creigh Deeds, over his Republican opponent, Bob McDonnell: "Deeds Shows Big Gains In Va. Poll," it announces with an unmistakable note of triumph. "More in N.Va., Women Describe McDonnell As Too Conservative." Read a little further into the story and you may find that
by Roger Kimball | from Pajamas Media
I just heard the sad news that Irving Kristol, “the godfather of Neoconservatism,” died today. I will have more to say about this remarkable man elsewhere, but I wanted to take a moment now to register my sorrow at the passing of a friend whom I greatly admired and a man whose intellectual labors [...] by James Bowman
The first reports of Jimmy Carter’s typically ill-judged remarks about the racial motivations of Congressman Joe Wilson’s mentito, hurled in the teeth of President Obama, were accompanied in The Washington Post, The New York Times and Politico, among other distinguished outlets, by reports of how the Obama administration and other senior Democrats were hastening to distance themselves from them. Some of the less nimble-witted among the punditry may have seen fit to pile into Jimmy’s leaky rhetorical skiff alongside him, but that the more clued-in saw the political if not the intellectual inadvisability of any such course I take to be a hopeful sign. Certainly more hopeful than the torrent of refutations that have proceeded and continue to proceed from my own side of the aisle. After all, definitive demonstrations of the wrong-headedness of Jimmy Carter have always been the Lincoln-head pennies of right-wing currency: legal tender, to be sure, but hardly worth stooping to pick up if you find one dropped in the street. |
About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age.
Shortcut
To contact The New Criterion by email, write to: Contact
 The New Criterion is now optimized for Mobile Devices 
New from The New Criterion: "Free speech in
EventsNovember 24, 2009 OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading December 02, 2009 Friends Event: The Swallow Anthology Reading December 17, 2009 Friends Event: New Criterion Holiday Party More events > |
